Vera Rants: Breaking Bad vs. Broadchurch

“Breaking Bad” was such a downer — so depressing and showed an unremittingly negative view of human nature — and yet it is praised and followed with people now in mourning for its passing.

The main character, Walter White, is a good guy who gets bad, badder, baddest and then truly disgusting as he becomes so hardened that he can kill without wincing. [Full disclosure: I quit after trying to watch two of the middle seasons.]

Meanwhile, the show “Broadchurch” on BBC America developed the full complexity of every character the plot touched in a small town, and showed true humanity.” Breaking Bad” excelled in gruesome, while”Broadchurch” found visually artistic ways to portray its subject matter.

“Broadchurch” unravels as real police work does, with a whole season of episodes to solve one crime instead of a murder a minute, solved between commercials, as is the case with most TV mysteries.

I recorded “Broadchurch” and just finished watching the last episodes. It tore my heart out, not because some hopelessly corrupted guy finally lay bleeding, but because two genuinely honest human beings with weaknesses of their own came to the end of their search in ways that changed their lives forever.

“Broadchurch” left the viewer with hope that people had learned something from the travail, and that the community would heal.

In my opinion, “Broadchurch” deserves the adulation that instead is going to “Breaking Bad.”

“Broadchurch” stars David Tennant and Olivia Colman; check out the official site, and tell us your thoughts below. Agree or disagree with me?

Vera Marie Badertscher first went to the movies at the Duncan Theater in Killbuck, Ohio, when her grandmother was selling tickets. Now she watches Netflix and TV movie channels more often than movies in theaters, but she loves to rediscover old favorites. When she's not at the movies, she's reading and traveling and writing at A Traveler's Library and Ancestors In Aprons. Follow her on Twitter at @pen4hire.

3 COMMENTS

I agree! That final episode of Broadchurch was so heart wrenching and so beautifully executed as tragic as the ending was. It pulled all the threads across the episodes together so well. Made you feel truly as if you lived thru this experience with the town. I found myself emotionally drained at the end even as uplifting as the celebration of Danny’s life was.